Litseen

Online Fundraiser for GGP: Author Aaron Wright Discussing Thirteen Doors with Author Bianca Marais
2021-01-26 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Please join us for an online book launch and discussion on January 26, 2021 at 5 PM PST / 8 PM EST featuring author Aaron Wright discussing THIRTEEN DOORS: A FAMILY’S FIGHT FOR EQUAL ACCESS TO EDUCATION with author Bianca Marais.
Admission with a copy of the book is $25, and admission only is $10. All proceeds go to benefit A Great Good Place for Books.
Aaron was raised in the heart of the Central Valley in California. He is the son of two educators—his father worked in special education and his mother in early childhood education. Aaron was raised with an awareness of, and appreciation for, access issues for marginalized and vulnerable students.
When his daughter was diagnosed with autism at an early age and initially denied access to special education, Aaron began a quest to understand, and ensure compliance with, the state and federal protections afforded disabled students.
As a nurse and disadvantaged student advocate, Aaron’s drive to understand how the public education system works became a passion. Early in his family’s journey toward a free and appropriate education for his daughter, he found that the issues were far larger than his family.
Quietly, Aaron began to pen his family’s journey in a memoir. A true labor of love, Thirteen Doors took more than four years to write.
Once the initial manuscript was complete, he gave it to his unsuspecting wife as a Mother’s Day gift. Over the course of another year and a half, the manuscript was revised, edited, and most importantly given the seal of approval by his daughter. Aaron’s ultimate hope is to engage a national audience in a deep and meaningful conversation about our most vulnerable students and how they are losing their access to a suitable education and what can be done to change the system that is traumatizing children and their parents.

VIRTUAL: Roy Richard Grinker in conversation with Steve Silberman / Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness
2021-01-26 18:00 - 20:00
Booksmith and The Bindery are very pleased to host the virtual launch for Roy Richard Grinker’s new book Nobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness. Joining him in conversation is Steve Silberman (NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity).
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.
You can order Nobody’s Normal here – we’re currently offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay.
For centuries, scientists and society cast moral judgments on anyone deemed mentally ill, confining many to asylums. In Nobody’s Normal, anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker chronicles the progress and setbacks in the struggle against mental-illness stigma—from the eighteenth century, through America’s major wars, and into today’s high-tech economy.
Nobody’s Normal argues that stigma is a social process that can be explained through cultural history, a process that began the moment we defined mental illness, that we learn from within our communities, and that we ultimately have the power to change. Though the legacies of shame and secrecy are still with us today, Grinker writes that we are at the cusp of ending the marginalization of the mentally ill. In the twenty-first century, mental illnesses are fast becoming a more accepted and visible part of human diversity.
Grinker infuses the book with the personal history of his family’s four generations of involvement in psychiatry, including his grandfather’s analysis with Sigmund Freud, his own daughter’s experience with autism, and culminating in his research on neurodiversity. Drawing on cutting-edge science, historical archives, and cross-cultural research in Africa and Asia, Grinker takes readers on an international journey to discover the origins of, and variances in, our cultural response to neurodiversity.
Urgent, eye-opening, and ultimately hopeful, Nobody’s Normal explains how we are transforming mental illness and offers a path to end the shadow of stigma.
Roy Richard Grinker is professor of anthropology and international affairs at the George Washington University. He is the author of several books, including Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism. He lives in Washington, DC.
Steve Silberman is an award-winning science writer and the author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, which Oliver Sacks called “a sweeping and penetrating history presented with a rare sympathy and sensitivity.” The book became a widely-praised bestseller in the United States and the United Kingdom. His TED talk, The Forgotten History of Autism, has been viewed more than a million times and translated into 35 languages. He lives with his husband Keith in San Francisco. Author photo by Tanya Rosen-Jones.
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required. RSVP here.

Simon Winchester - Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World (Virtual Event)
2021-01-26 18:00 - 20:00
The author of The Professor and the Madman and The Perfectionists explores the notion of property—our proprietary relationship with the land—through human history, how it has shaped us and what it will mean for our future.
Land—whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city—is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. Employing the keen intellect, insatiable curiosity, and narrative verve that are the foundations of his previous bestselling works, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing—and have done—with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet.
Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World examines in depth how we acquire land, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the essential question: who actually owns the world’s land—and why does it matter?
Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, The Map That Changed the World, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best and notable lists. In 2006, Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He resides in western Massachusetts.
Don George is the author of The Way of Wanderlust: The Best Travel Writing of Don George and of Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing and the editor of ten anthologies, including A Moveable Feast, The Kindness of Strangers, Better Than Fiction, and An Innocent Abroad. George is Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler, where he writes feature articles and the monthly Trip Lit column. He is also Editor of BBC Travel‘s literary travel column, Chance Encounters.

'Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure' MCD Virtual Event
2021-01-27 10:00 - 11:00 | Museum of Craft and Design, 2569 Third Street, San Francisco, 94107
The Museum of Craft and Design welcomes writer and speaker Katie Treggiden for a virtual discussion of her new book, “Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure” on Wednesday, January 27!

The program will begin with an introduction by the book’s forward author, renowned art critic, and curator Glenn Adamson. Then, dive into “Wasted”, chronicling 30 designers who have founded their artistic and entrepreneurial practices upon principles of sustainability, waste reduction, and circular economics. Each of the featured makers and manufacturers have made reclaimed waste their primary material of construction in hopes of confronting Earth’s ever-ominous climate issues by avoiding the “take-make-waste” consumer model and rethinking the ways in which we can minimize our consumption and relative pollution.

In this talk, Treggiden will also explore the sociocultural and economic influences surrounding the book’s featured projects, as well as highlight the people and ideas reinvigorating streams of waste into both functional and decorative objects, followed by a Q&A session.

Purchase your copy of “Wasted” from the MCD Museum Store today at shop.sfmcd.org/books/wasted-when-trash-becomes-treasure.

Pre-register now at sfmcd.org/events-limited space available!

$8 General Admission, $6 Students/Seniors.

http://sfmcd.org sbrosales@sfmcd.org 415-773-0303

The Echoing Ida Collective
2021-01-27 18:00 - 20:00
evening of discussion celebrating the launch of the new book
The Echoing Ida Collection
Edited by Cynthia R. Greenlee, Kemi Alabi, and Janna A. Zinzi
published by The Feminist Press
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This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.
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Event is free, but registration is required.
(Click Here) to register. Link to be posted shortly.
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(Click Here) to purchase book. Link to be posted shortly.
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Rooted in reproductive justice, Echoing Ida harnesses the power of media for social justice—amplifying the struggles and successes of contemporary freedom movements in the US.
Founded in 2012, Echoing Ida is a writing collective of Black women and nonbinary writers who—like their foremother Ida B. Wells-Barnett—believe the “way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Their community reporting spans a wide variety of topics: reproductive justice and abortion politics; new and necessary definitions of family; trans visibility; stigma against Black motherhood; Black mental health; and more.
This anthology collects the best of Echoing Ida for the first time, and features a foreword by Michelle Duster, activist and great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Imagining a gender-expansive and liberated future, these essays affirm the powerful combination of #BlackGirlMagic and the hard, unceasing labor of Black people to reimagine the world in which we live.
“A rich awakening to the revolution and evolution of Black women and nonbinary voices, and a deeply majestic tribute to the expanse of Black cultural movements—in singular reverence and collective power.” —Rebecca Carroll, author of Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir
“Fueled by curiosity and generous with their vulnerability, the Idas ask probing questions of themselves, each other, and the world. Right now media outlets are scrambling to hire writers who can find and tell important stories about race, gender, sexuality, and power. Editors nationwide should know the Idas’ names, seek them out, and pay them well for their insights and analysis.” —Dani McClain, author of We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood

About the editors:
Janna A. Zinzi is a communications strategist, writer and performer.

Cynthia R. Greenlee is a writer, editor, and historian of the African-American experience. She is a former senior editor at Rewire.News.

Kemi Alabi is a poet, teaching artist, and cultural strategy director of Forward Together.

Bradford Pearson with Patrick Radden Keefe - The Eagles of Heart Mountain (Virtual Event)
2021-01-27 18:00 - 20:00
The impeccably researched, deeply moving, never-before-told tale about a World War II incarceration camp in Wyoming and its extraordinary high school football team—for fans of The Boys in the Boat and The Storm on Our Shores.
In the spring of 1942, the United States government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona and sent them to incarceration camps across the West. Nearly 14,000 of them landed on the outskirts of Cody, Wyoming, at the base of Heart Mountain.
Behind barbed wire fences, they faced racism, cruelty, and frozen winters. Trying to recreate comforts from home, many established Buddhist temples and sumo wrestling pits. Kabuki performances drew hundreds of spectators—yet there was little hope.
That is, until the fall of 1943, when the camp’s high school football team, the Eagles, started its first season and finished it undefeated, crushing the competition from nearby, predominantly white high schools. Amid all this excitement, American politics continued to disrupt their lives as the federal government drafted men from the camps for the front lines—including some of the Eagles. As the team’s second season kicked off, the young men faced a choice to either join the Army or resist the draft. Teammates were divided, and some were jailed for their decisions.
The Eagles of Heart Mountain honors the resilience of extraordinary heroes and the power of sports in a sweeping and inspirational portrait of one of the darkest moments in American history.
Bradford Pearson is the former features editor of Southwest: The Magazine. He has written for The New York Times, Esquire, Time, and Salon, among many other publications. He grew up in Hyde Park, New York, and now lives in Philadelphia. The Eagles of Heart Mountain is his first book.
Patrick Radden Keefe is an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker magazine and the author of the New York Times bestseller Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, as well as two other books: The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream, and Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping. He is also the writer and host of Wind of Change, an 8-part podcast series from Pineapple Street Studios, Crooked Media, and Spotify, which investigates the strange convergence of espionage and pop music during the Cold War. In addition to The New Yorker, his work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and other publications. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, and fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the New America Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. He lives in New York.

Virtual Event: Julia Cameron and Judy Collins
2021-01-27 19:00 - 20:00 | online
Join us on Wednesday, January 27th at 7pm PT for an evening with Julia Cameron and Judy Collins in celebration of Cameron’s latest book, The Listening Path: The Creative Art of Attention, in partnership with the Bay Area Book Festival and the Ruby.
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT
Books will ship out after publication date of January 12
For questions regarding tickets, please contact ticketing@baybookfest.org
About the Event

Having enriched the creative and artistic journeys of millions—Martin Scorsese and Elizabeth Gilbert among them—with her Artist’s Way program and books, Julia Cameron lives up to her New York Times-bestowed moniker, “Queen of Change.” Now, at the dawning of a new year that promises much-welcomed change, the “Godmother of Creativity” will show us how to harness that spirit of renewal with her latest guide to attunement and fulfillment, The Listening Path, filled with what bestselling author Gay Hendricks calls “life-changing gifts.” Joining Julia for this live, virtual event is her dear friend, one of the many world-renowned artists to have implemented her transformational practice: Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Judy Collins, a national treasure whose artistry is timeless (“At 80,” said The New York Times last year, “Collins sounds as clear as a spring wending through a field of wildflowers”).
You won’t want to miss these two legendary creatives in conversation, talking about all things art, life, inspiration, and most importantly in these cacophonous times, how to truly listen. With 2020 (thankfully) in the rearview mirror, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to recharge your creative battery for a brand new year.
Women Lit members may reserve a free ticket and will have the option to order a copy of The Listening Path after signing in to their account. If you would like to join Women Lit, please sign up here.
Each ticket includes private access to the event recording for 10 days following the live event.
This event makes a great gift! You can download a lovely card to forward to your recipient—we’ll take care of the rest, including shipping books!

Virtual Event: Julia Cameron and Judy Collins
2021-01-27 19:00 - 21:00
JOIN US ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27 AT 7PM PT FOR AN EVENING WITH JULIA CAMERON AND JUDY COLLINS IN CELEBRATION OF CAMERON’S LATEST BOOK, THE LISTENING PATH: THE CREATIVE ART OF ATTENTION, IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE BAY AREA BOOK FESTIVAL AND THE RUBY.
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT
Books will ship out after publication date of January 12
For questions regarding tickets, please contact ticketing@baybookfest.org
About the Event
Having enriched the creative and artistic journeys of millions—Martin Scorsese and Elizabeth Gilbert among them—with her Artist’s Way program and books, Julia Cameron lives up to her New York Times-bestowed moniker, “Queen of Change.” Now, at the dawning of a new year that promises much-welcomed change, the “Godmother of Creativity” will show us how to harness that spirit of renewal with her latest guide to attunement and fulfillment, The Listening Path, filled with what bestselling author Gay Hendricks calls “life-changing gifts.” Joining Julia for this live, virtual event is her dear friend, one of the many world-renowned artists to have implemented her transformational practice: Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Judy Collins, a national treasure whose artistry is timeless (“At 80,” said The New York Times last year, “Collins sounds as clear as a spring wending through a field of wildflowers”).
You won’t want to miss these two legendary creatives in conversation, talking about all things art, life, inspiration, and most importantly in these cacophonous times, how to truly listen. With 2020 (thankfully) in the rearview mirror, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to recharge your creative battery for a brand new year.
Women Lit members may reserve a free ticket and will have the option to order a copy of The Listening Path after signing in to their account. If you would like to join Women Lit, please sign up here.
Each ticket includes private access to the event recording for 10 days following the live event.
This event makes a great gift! You can download a lovely card to forward to your recipient—we’ll take care of the rest, including shipping books!
Tickets are available here.

VIRTUAL EVENT: Anastasia Higginbotham, What You Don't Know
2021-01-28 16:00 - 18:00
Join us for a special virtual event with author and illustrator Anastasia Higginbotham whose new picture book, What You Don’t Know: A Story of Liberated Childhood, delves into queerness, Blackness, and the love that dismantles whiteness. This event will include a reading, Q&A, and demonstration of Higginbotham’s disco collage workshop. A “backdrop” for collages will be included with every copy of What You Don’t Know purchased from Bookshop Santa Cruz, while supplies last. (Preorder your copy below.)
Register for this free Crowdcast event by clicking here!
What You Don’t Know is a book about knowing deeply that you matter—always did, always will. It’s a book about what schools get wrong and churches don’t say; but institutions are made by people and the people are evolving. It’s a book about being known and cherished by family, and living in communion with your own personal Jesus, Buddha, Spirit, Source, Father, Mother, God, breath, inner space, outer space, nothingness, and however else we name and relate to our divinity and humility in the presence of all we don’t know.
“A visually rich story that speaks truth to power for LGBTQ+ kids and their families and allies.” —Kirkus Reviews

This is a free event. The book may be preordered below.
You can make a donation to help support Bookshop Santa Cruz here. Thank you!
ANASTASIA HIGGINBOTHAM is the author and illustrator of Divorce Is the Worst, Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, Death Is Stupid, and Tell Me About Sex, Grandma—all part of the Ordinary Terrible Things series. She lives in Brooklyn. Librarians love her, but not as much as she loves them.

VIRTUAL EVENT: LIVING WRITERS SERIES, K-Ming Chang
2021-01-28 17:20 - 18:55, 2021-01-28 17:20 - 19:00
The UCSC Literature Department and Creative Writing Program Present: LIVING WRITERS SERIES WINTER 2021 “Shelter and Place,” a theme about world building when the world seems to be falling apart, about writing about place, about seeking and finding and not finding shelter in stormy times, and of course, what it means to be a writer and a person writing while sheltering in place.
JANUARY 28TH FEATURED WRITER: K-MING CHANG
K-Ming Chang / 張欣明 is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the debut novel BESTIARY (One World/Random House, 2020). More of her writing can be found online at http://kmingchang.com
Register for this FREE event series here.
The Living Writers Series runs on select Thursdays from 5:20-6:55p.m. Authors’ books available for pick up or delivery via Bookshop Santa Cruz. Find them here.

Peter Gizzi in conversation with CA Conrad
2021-01-28 18:00 - 20:00
Peter Gizzi reads from
Now It’s Dark: New Poems
published by Wesleyan University Press
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This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.
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Event is free, but registration is required.
(Click Here) to register. Link coming soon.
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(Click Here) to purchase book. Link coming soon.
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The poems in this brilliant follow-up to the National Book Award finalist Archeophonics, are concerned with grieving, with poetry and death, with beauty and sadness, with light. As Ben Lerner has written, “Gizzi’s poetry is an example of how a poet’s total tonal attention can disclose new orders of sensation and meaning. His beautiful lines are full of deft archival allusion.” With litany, elegy, and prose, Gizzi continues his pursuit toward a lyric of reality. Saturated with luminous detail, these original poems possess, even in their sorrowing moments, a dizzying freedom.
Peter Gizzi is the author of eight collections of poetry including Archeophonics, Threshold Songs, and In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011. He has also published several limited-edition chapbooks, folios, and artist books. He lives in Holyoke, MA. Visit: https://www.petergizzi.org/
CA Conrad is the author of nine books of poetry and essays, including their latest book is JUPITER ALIGNMENT: (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals (Ignota Books, forthcoming 2020) and While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books), which won a Lambda Book Award. A documentary about their work, The Book of Conrad (Delinquent Films), is viewable online on their website.

VIRTUAL: Debut Authors Panel with Lupita Reads, featuring Benjamin Garcia, Emily Hashimoto & Poupeh Missaghi
2021-01-28 18:00 - 20:00
Booksmith is very pleased to host a virtual event with a trio of debut authors in conversations about their new books: Benjamin Garcia (Thrown in the Throat), Emily Hashimoto (A World Between) and Poupeh Missaghi (trans(re)lating house one). The panel will be lead by Lupita Reads.
Free and all ages, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.
You can order a copy of the authors’ books by clicking on the titles below. We’re currently offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay:
Thrown in the Throat by Benjamin Garcia
A World Between by Emily Hashimoto
trans(re)lating house one by Poupeh Missaghi
— Thrown in the Throat by Benjamin Garcia —
“Tongues make mistakes / and mistakes / make languages.” And Benjamin Garcia makes a stunning debut with Thrown in the Throat. In a sex-positive incantation that retextures what it is to write a queer life amidst troubled times, Garcia writes boldly of citizenship, family, and Adam Rippon’s butt. Detailing a childhood spent undocumented, one speaker recalls nights when “because we cannot sleep / we dream with open eyes.” Garcia delves with both English and Spanish into how one survives a country’s long love affair with anti-immigrant cruelty. Rendering a family working to the very end to hold each other, he writes the kind of family you both survive and survive with.
With language that arrives equal parts regal and raucous, Thrown in the Throat shines brilliant with sweat and an iridescent voice. “Sometimes even a diamond was once alive” writes Garcia in a collection that National Poetry Series judge Kazim Ali says “has deadly superpowers.” And indeed these poems arrive to our hands through touch-me-nots and the slight cruelty of mothers, through closets both real and metaphorical. These are poems complex, unabashed, and needed as survival. Garcia’s debut is nothing less than exactly the ode our history and present and our future call for: brash and unmistakably alive.
Benjamin Garcia’s first collection of poems, Thrown in the Throat, was selected for the 2019 National Poetry Series by Kazim Ali and published by Milkweed Editions. He is a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow, was the 2017 Latinx Scholar at the Frost Place, and was a 2018 CantoMundo Fellow at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2018, Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, and New England Review. Garcia received his MFA from Cornell University and currently works as a sexual health and harm reduction educator in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
Order Thrown in the Throat by Benjamin Garcia and have it delivered to your door.
— A World Between by Emily Hashimoto —
In 2004, college students Eleanor Suzuki and Leena Shah meet in an elevator. Both girls are on the brink of adulthood, each full of possibility and big ideas, and they fall into a whirlwind romance. Years later, Eleanor and Leena collide on the streets of San Francisco. Although grown and changed and each separately partnered, the two find themselves, once again, irresistibly pulled back together.
Emily Hashimoto’s debut novel perfectly captures the wonder and confusion of growing up and growing closer. Narrated in sparkling prose, A World Between follows two strikingly different but interconnected women as they navigate family, female friendship, and their own fraught history.
Emily Hashimoto is a queer writer of color from the suburbs of New Jersey. She is a graduate of Rutgers University with a degree in women’s and gender studies, and her MS in Information Science from Pratt Institute. She has received fellowships from VONA and Queer Arts. Her nonfiction writing has appeared in The Rumpus and Bitch Magazine, centering feminist critique and queer narratives. She lives in New York City with her wife and child.
Order A World Between by Emily Hashimoto and have it delivered to your door.
— trans(re)lating house one by Poupeh Missaghi —
In the aftermath of Iran’s 2009 election, a woman undertakes a search for the statues disappearing from Tehran’s public spaces. A chance meeting alters her trajectory, and the space between fiction and reality narrows. As she circles the city’s points of connection—teahouses, buses, galleries, hookah bars—her many questions are distilled into one: How do we translate loss into language?
Melding several worlds, perspectives, and narrative styles, trans(re)lating house one translates the various realities of Tehran and its inhabitants into the realm of art, helping us remember them anew.
Poupeh Missaghi is a writer, a translator both into and out of Persian, an editor, and an educator. She holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Denver, an MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, and an MA in translation studies. Her debut novel trans(re)lating house one was published by Coffee House Press in February 2020. Her nonfiction, fiction, and translations have appeared in numerous journals, and she has several books of translation published in Iran. I’ll Be Strong for You, her translation of Iranian author Nasim Marashi’s novel, is forthcoming in spring 2021. As an editor, she worked for many years with Asymptote and is co-editor of Matters of Feminist Practice from Belladonna* Collaborative. She is currently a visiting assistant professor at the Department of Writing at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn; a faculty mentor at the low-residency MFA of Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland; as well as a writing consultant at Baruch College, CUNY, NY.
Order trans(re)lating house one by Poupeh Missaghi and have it delivered to your door.
– ABOUT THE MODERATOR –
Lupita Aquino—better known as Lupita Reads—is a passionate reader active in both the local and online book community through her Instagram account- @Lupita.Reads. She is the creator of the #LatinxBookstagramTour, a columnist for the Washington Independent Review of Books, a contributor for the Reading Women podcast, and the co-founder and current moderator/curator for LIT on H St. Book Club.
– PLEASE NOTE –
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.

Jerald Walker & Kevin Cartwright: Zoom Event: How to Make a Slave and Other Essays
2021-01-28 19:00 - 20:30 | Virtual
KPFA Radio 94.1 FM presents:
Jerald Walker and Kevin Cartwright: A Zoom Event
How to Make a Slave
Finalist, 2020 National Book Award in Nonfiction
Eventbrite Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jerald-walker-how-to-make-a-slave-and-other-essays-tickets-130211779939
For the Black community, Jerald Walker asserts in How To Make a Slave,” anger is often a prelude to a joke, as there is broad understanding that the triumph over this destructive emotion is in finding its punchline.” It is on the knife’s edge between fury and farce that the essays in this exquisite collection balance. Whether confronting the medical profession’s racial biases, considering the complicated legacy of Michael Jackson, paying homage to his writing mentor, or attempting to break free of personal and societal stereotypes, Walker elegantly blends intimate revelation and cultural critique. The result is a bracing, often humorous examination by one of America’s most acclaimed essayists of what it is to grow, parent, write, and simply exist at this time as a Black American male.
“These powerful essays offer an incisive glimpse into life as a Black man in America…crafted with honesty and a wry comedic flair, these essays are both engaging and enraging.” -Kirkus Review
Jerald Walker is the author of The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult and Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption (winner of the 2011 PEN New England Award for Nonfiction). His work has been widely anthologized, including five times in The Best American Essays. He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Emerson College.
Kevin Cartwright, a former Program Director with KPFA Radio, has also produced and contributed to a number of local and national public affairs programs, including Democracy Now, Living Room, The Morning Show, Education Today, 1440, and various short run documentaries.

Aida Salazar on Instagram Live IGTV
2021-01-30 11:00 - 13:00
reading The Land of the Cranes, a heart-wrenchingly beautiful story in verse of a young Latinx girl who learns to hold on to hope and love even in the darkest of places: a family detention center for migrants and refugees.

Saturday, January 30, 2021 – 11:00am

Join us on Instagram IGTV. Follow along @MRSDALLOWAYS. Videos disappear after 24 hours so be sure to watch!
Nine-year-old Betita and her parents fled Mexico after her uncle was killed by the cartels, and settled in Los Angeles seeking political asylum and safety in what her father calls Aztlan, the land of the cranes; but now they have been swept up by by the government’s Immigration Customs Enforcement, her father deported back to Mexico, and Betita and her mother confined in a family detention camp–Betita finds heart in her imagination and the picture poems her father taught her, but each day threatens to further tear her family apart.
Aida Salazar is also the author of The Moon Within. She lives with her family of artists in a teal house in Oakland.

Virtual Class: Art History with Kerrin Meis - The Aesthetic Movement: The Cult of Beauty Revisited (via Zoom)
2021-01-30 13:00 - 15:00
In their operetta Patience, Gilbert and Sullivan skewered the Aesthetic movement—the anti-industrial stance adopted by a talented and opinionated group of artists, poets, and architects that had an enormous impact on painting, architecture, interior design, and dress. Closely related to the Arts and Crafts movement, Aestheticism attempted to redefine the relationship between “Fine Arts” and design. An exhibit in 2012, originated by the Victoria and Albert Museum, celebrated the creations of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, James McNeill Whistler, Burne-Jones, Godwin, William Morris, and a host of others. Let’s educate ourselves about the philosophy, interaction, and production of these creative geniuses. We look at paintings, sculpture, furniture, household objects, and houses—and read some poetry.
Kerrin Meis taught art history at SFSU for ten years and has led study tours in Europe. Her Book Passage classes have been favorites for years.

Barbara McHugh with Dorothy Edwards - Bride of the Buddha (Virtual Event)
2021-01-30 16:00 - 18:00
Bride of the Buddha is a vivid portrayal of the life of Yasodhara—abandoned wife of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama—depicting her as a spiritual seeker in her own right, a woman who sought to understand the meaning of life even before her husband left their marriage and their infant son Rahula to seek his own enlightenment. Author Barbara McHugh brings to life the world of the aristocratic clan into which Yasodhara and Siddhartha Gautama were born and imagines Yasodhara as intelligent, resourceful and independent—a woman who had always sought her own spiritual path, despite the constraints placed on women at the time. Following the Siddhartha’s departure, Yasodhara devotes herself to her life as a mother, but when the Buddha returns and their young son leaves his family to enter the sangha, she is devastated to learn that, as a woman, she is prohibited from joining them. Bereft, she leaves the comforts of her family to live in the wild and apprentices herself to a female holy woman. After many adventures of her own, she conceals her gender and enters the Buddha’s sangha as a young monk named Ananda, who will eventually become one of the Buddha’s closest confidants and ultimately the one who convinces the Buddha to allow women into their community.
In the best tradition of historical fiction, McHugh, as she states in the novel’s Historical Note, mixes “fact and fiction, taking advantage of modern scholarship, while at the same time weaving in myths and symbolic narratives to express truth
beyond words” in order to portray “a Buddha who is both a historical being and an evolving, collective creation of the human imagination.” McHugh brings the past vividly to life in Bride of the Buddha while also addressing issues still debated today, including gender identity, sexuality, the role of women in religious communities, motherhood, and more. She has created a book that, as Sam Keen, author of Fire in the Belly and Your Mythic Journey writes, brings “Yasodhara out of the shadows” and makes “…use of historical texts, oral traditions, and a vivid imagination, [to create] a portrait of the bride of Buddha and the world in which he lived…unforgettable.”
Barbara McHugh, PhD, is a Buddhist practitioner with a degree in religion and literature from The Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley. She is a published poet, writing coach, and book doctor. Her research for this book includes exhaustive study of Pali texts in translation and on-site explorations in India.
Dorothy Edwards‘ first published work is Langston’s Moon, a children’s story about an African American family. Currently she is at work on a novel set in the Caribbean and a non-fiction book about imagination.

Conversations with Authors - Sherry L. Smith with Peter Coyote (Virtual Event)
2021-01-30 16:00 - 18:00
Sherry L. Smith’s Bohemians West is a revelatory biography of a radical romance at the dawn of the twentieth century.
The opening years of the twentieth century saw a grand cast of radicals and reformers fighting for a new America, seeking change not only in labor picket lines and at women’s suffrage rallies but also in homes and bedrooms. In the thick of this heady milieu were Sara Bard Field and Charles Erskine Scott Wood, two aspiring poets and political activists whose love story uncovers a potent emotional world underneath this transformative time.
Self-declared pioneers in free love, Sara and Erskine exchanged hundreds of letters that chartered a new kind of romantic relationship, and their personal affair frequently intersected with their deeply engaged political lives. As Sara’s star rose in the suffrage movement (including an automobile trip she took across the country in 1915 carrying a petition with thousands of signatures demanding Congress pass the Nineteenth Amendment), she began to ask questions about her own power in her relationship with Erskine. Charting a passionate and tumultuous relationship that spanned decades, Bohemians West offers a deeply personal look at a dynamic period in American history.
Sherry L. Smith is University Distinguished Professor of History (Emerita) at Southern Methodist University. A historian of the American West and Native America, Smith’s other books include Hippies, Indians, and the Fight for Red Power and Reimagining Indians: Native Americans through Anglo Eyes, 1880–1940, both published by Oxford University Press. She is a former president of the Western History Association and received the Los Angeles Times Distinguished Fellowship at the Huntington Library, which supported research for Bohemians West. Smith has also been honored with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Foundation, and Yale University’s Beinecke Library. She lives in Moose, Wyoming, and Pasadena, California.
Peter Coyote is the author of the 1960’s counter-culture memoir Sleeping Where I Fall, which received universally excellent reviews and has been in continuous print since 1999. His second book about mentors and the search for wisdom, The Rainman’s Third Cure: An Irregular Education, was nominated as one of the top five non-fiction books published in California in 2015. His third book, Unmasking Your True Self (the Lone Ranger and Tonto Meet the Buddha) combines 50 years of Buddhist practice with acting and uses masks and improv exercises to foster liberation experiences and teach people “how to get out of their own way.” It is forthcoming from Inner Traditions Press, as his first book of poems, The Tongue of a Crow. He has performed as an actor in over 160 films for theaters and TV. He is a double Emmy-Award winning narrator of over 150 documentary films. An ordained Zen Buddhist priest and transmitted teacher, Peter is currently giving live weekly dharma talks on Facebook, preparing for a fourth book called Vernacular Buddhism.

Virtual Event: Annalee Newitz and Charles C. Mann
2021-02-02 18:00 - 20:00
JOIN US ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2 AT 6PM PT WHEN ANNALEE NEWITZ IS JOINED BY CHARLES C. MANN FOR THE LAUNCH OF THEIR LATEST BOOK, FOUR LOST CITIES: A SECRET HISTORY OF THE URBAN AGE, ON ZOOM!
PREORDER A COPY TODAY AND RECEIVE A SPECIAL SIGNED POSTCARD!
Zoom Login Info
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Praise for Four Lost Cities
“Newitz always sees to the heart of complex systems and breaks them down with poetic ferocity.”— N. K. Jemisin, author of the Broken Earth trilogy and The City We Became
“Cheerful, curious, amused, and amusing, Annalee Newitz is a fabulous tour guide through the latest archaeological perspectives on four of humankind’s most remarkable urban experiments. Along the way, Newitz dispels myths, evokes fascinating stories—and makes us think hard about our own urban future.”— Charles C. Mann, author of 1491 and 1493
“Annalee Newitz is a brilliant writer with the heart of an archaeologist and the soul of a visionary. Four Lost Cities should open our eyes to all that may happen to our cities in the future. Vibrant and adventurous, this is a necessary book for turbulent times.”— Sarah Parcak, archaeologist and author of Archaeology from Space
About Four Lost Cities
A quest to explore some of the most spectacular ancient cities in human history—and figure out why people abandoned them.
In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.
Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology, revealing the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early development of urban planning, Newitz also introduces us to the often anonymous workers—slaves, women, immigrants, and manual laborers—who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia.
Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate.

VIRTUAL EVENT: Gretel Ehrlich, Unsolaced
2021-02-02 19:00 - 21:00
Gretel Ehrlich, author of the enduring classic The Solace of Open Spaces, will share her new book Unsolaced—a wondrous meditation on how water, light, wind, mountain, bird, and horse have shaped her life and her understanding of a world besieged by a climate crisis.
Register for this free Crowdcast event by clicking here!

This is a free event. The featured book may be purchased below.
You can make a donation to help support Bookshop Santa Cruz here. Thank you!

Amid species extinctions and disintegrating ice sheets, this stunning collection of memories, observations, and narratives is acute and lyrical, Whitmanesque in breadth, and as elegant as a Japanese teahouse. “Sentience and sunderance,” Ehrlich writes. “How we know what we know, who teaches us, how easy it is to lose it all.” As if to stave off impending loss, she embarks on strenuous adventures to Greenland, Africa, Kosovo, Japan, and an uninhabited Alaskan island, always returning to her simple Wyoming cabin at the foot of the mountains and the trail that leads into the heart of them.
“In lush, evocative prose, Ehrlich details some breathtakingly perilous journeys . . . A vigorous plea for responsible environmental stewardship and a treat for all fans of nature writing.” — Kirkus Review (starred)
GRETEL EHRLICH is the author of Facing the Wave, The Future of Ice, Heart Mountain, The Solace of Open Spaces, and This Cold Heaven, among other works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Ehrlich studied at Bennington College and UCLA film school. She divides her time between Montana and Hawaii.

Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri | GGP Online Book Club
2021-02-02 19:00 - 21:00
Please join us on Tuesday, February 2, 2021 at 7 PM PST for a GGP Online Book Club discussion of Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri.
The Zoom meeting will be at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88666921359,
You can order a print copy at http://bit.ly/ggpEverythingSadIsUntrue or in audiobook from Libro.fm, GGP’s audiobook partner, at http://bit.ly/EverythingSadAB.
Staff Reviews

A true refugee story told in a Scheherazade-like format. It’s the most engrossing book I’ve read this year: it’s magical, haunting, uplifting, funny, and sad all at once. I love this boy and I loved learning about his Iranian childhood and one-of-a-kind immigrant experience in Oklahoma. A MUST READ!
— Donna

One of my Top 3 Books of 2020: a rich history of a young Iranian refugee making a life in Oklahoma, his relationship with his parents, and finding an identity.
— Amy

One of my Top 3 Books of 2020: This beautiful book made me laugh and cry. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator’s voice is everything. He uses humor and myths to tell the tale of his Iranian family settling in Oklahoma and though it was written for kids, it is great for all ages.
— Sarah

Description

At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls “Daniel”) stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much.
But Khosrou’s stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy.and further back to the fields near the river Aras, where rain-soaked flowers bled red like the yolk of sunset burst over everything, and further back still to the Jasmine-scented city of Isfahan.
We bounce between a school bus of kids armed with paper clip missiles and spitballs to the heroines and heroes of Khosrou’s family’s past, who ate pastries that made people weep and cry “Akh, Tamar!” and touched carpets woven with precious gems.
Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, Daniel weaves a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story).
It is Daniel’s.
About the Author

Daniel Nayeri was born in Iran and spent a couple of years as a refugee before immigrating to Oklahoma at age eight with his family. He is the publisher of Odd Dot, an imprint of Macmillan, making him one of the youngest publishers in the industry. He has served on the CBC diversity committee and the CBC panel committee.

Virtual Event: Anna North and Esmé Weijun Wang
2021-02-03 18:00 - 19:00 | online
Join us on Wednesday, February 3rd at 6pm PT when Anna North is joined by Esmé Weijun Wang to discuss her latest novel, Outlawed, on Zoom!

Zoom Login Info
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87370850619

Praise for Outlawed
“I’m dazzled by this feminist Western about a world in which women’s worth and right to live are determined by the vagaries of fertility. Set in an alternate past, one all too similar to our today, Outlawed is terrifying, wise, tender, and thrilling. A masterpiece.” —R.O. Kwon, author of THE INCENDIARIES

“Outlawed flips the script on the beloved Western genre and gives us the iconic heroine-on-the-run we deserve. Anna North is a riveting storyteller . . . Reader, you are in for a real treat.” —Jenny Zhang, author of SOUR HEART

“A moving and invigorating complication of the Western, highlighting chosen family, love, and survival among outcasts in another American timeline. As she mines the genre for vital new stories, North beautifully shines a light on our real past and conveys a warning for the future.” —Lydia Kiesling, author of THE GOLDEN STATE

About Outlawed
The Crucible meets True Grit in this riveting adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West.

In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw.

The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada’s life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows.
She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she’s willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all.

Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of small-mindedness and fear.

Berkeley Lunch Poems: Kiki Petrosino
2021-02-04 12:00 - 13:00 | online
Berkeley Lunch Poems
A noontime poetry reading series
Readings will take place remotely for the 2020-2021 academic year. Zoom links will be available approximately two weeks before the event. All readings will be recorded and posted to youtube. To keep up to date, please join our list by emailing poems@library.berkeley.edu.
Link for all readings: https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/96370640480

Kiki Petrosino
Kiki Petrosino is the author of four books of poetry: White Blood: a Lyric of Virginia (2020), Witch Wife (2017), Hymn for the Black Terrific (2013) and Fort Red Border (2009), all from Sarabande Books. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, The Nation, The New York Times, FENCE, Gulf Coast, Jubilat, Tin House and on-line at Ploughshares. She teaches at the University of Virginia as a Professor of Poetry. Petrosino is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Al Smith Fellowship Award from the Kentucky Arts Council.

The Life Beyond: A Conversation About Grief and Cancer with Authors and Survivors Christine Corrigan and Laraine Herring (Virtual Event)
2021-02-04 16:00 - 18:00
Again: Surviving Cancer Twice with Love and Lists tells Christine Shields Corrigan’s story of receiving a breast cancer diagnosis at forty-nine, and how that forces her, as a wife, mom, and meticulous list-maker, to confront her deepest fears of illness, death, and loss of control as she struggles to face cancer again. From the discovery of a “junky” cyst, to chemotherapy and surgery, sleepless nights filled with rosaries and “what ifs,” and shifting family dynamics, her adult experience mirrors her teen bout with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, with one exception—she no longer has parents keeping her in the dark. With the ghosts of cancer past hovering around her, Chris falls into the same overprotective traps her taciturn Irish-Catholic parents created, striving to keep her family’s life “normal,” when it is anything but, and soldiering through on her own, until a neighbor’s unexpected advice and gift move her to accept others’ help. With fierce honesty, poignant reflection, and good humor, Chris shares a journey filled with sorrow, grace, forgiveness, and resilience, as she wends her way through cancer for the second time. Again offers practical guidance and hope to individuals that they have the strength to forge a path beyond a diagnosis.
What if a gift lived inside grief? Laraine Herring’s The Grief Forest follows Bunny, who captures her grief in a bubble the color of her father’s soul after her dies. She carries this grief with her, afraid that if she lets it go, she will lose her daddy. Bunny’s grief leads her to The Grief Forest and Grandmother Bunny, who meets her at the Forest’s edge. Bunny is afraid of all the grief she sees there, so she runs away and meets Death, who guides her deeper into the Forest. Each animal she meets expresses an aspect of grief. As Bunny’s grief begins to take on a life of its own, she becomes desperate to hold onto it, afraid of who she would be without it. She falls deeper into the Forest, meeting creatures of the sea and creatures of the night. When she meets Cobra, everything she thought she knew about grief falls away and she has to make a choice: hold on to a life that has gone, or learn how to be alive in a new environment. For all ages, The Grief Forest is a journey through complicated grieving, showing examples of delayed grief, absent grief, PTSD, attachment, disenfranchised grief, and many more. Bereavement is a place. When we grieve, we enter this mysterious world and we do not leave it unchanged. And by meeting our grief, sitting quietly with it and listening to it, we can access its deeper wisdom, helping to heal not only the griever, but the whole world.
Christine Shields Corrigan, a two-time cancer survivor, wife, and mom, gives voice to the beautiful ordinary in her lyrical and practical essays. Her work about family, illness, writing, and resilient survivorship has appeared in The Brevity Blog, Dreamer’s Creative Writing and Anthology, Grown & Flown, The Potato Soup Journal and Anthology, Purple Clover, Ravishly.com, Wildfire Magazine, and the Writer’s Circle 2 Anthology. Corrigan’s essay about how her cancer experiences helped her cope with the COVID-19 pandemic is included in (Her)orics: Women’s Lived Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic. A graduate of Manhattan College and Fordham University School of Law, Chris teaches creative nonfiction writing for an adult education program, provides writing workshops for cancer support groups, and serves on the programming committee of the Morristown Festival of Books. She lives in Somerset County, New Jersey, with her family and devoted Cavalier King Charles spaniel.
Laraine Herring is a tenured professor of creative writing and psychology. Her fiction has won the Barbara Deming Award for Women, and her nonfiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has volunteered for Hospice of the Valley, directed the New Song Center for Grieving Children’s support group, worked with women in transitional housing and women recovering from addiction. Her work—whether it’s her paid employment, her volunteer work, or her creative work—focuses on the power of stories to heal what’s hidden within us. Her most recent book is The Grief Forest, a book about what we don’t talk about. Her trilogy of writing books from Shambhala have been on Poets & Writers top ten books for writers. Her memoir, A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravenswill be released in October 2021 from Regal House Publishing. She is a colon cancer survivor and lives with many wise cats in northern AZ.

Dispatches from the Race War
2021-02-04 17:00 - 19:00
Essays on racial flashpoints, white denial, violence, and the manipulation of fear in America today.
“What Tim Wise has brilliantly done is to challenge white folks’ truth . . . to see that they have a responsibility to do more than sit back and watch, but to recognize their own role in co-creating . . . a fair, inclusive, truly democratic society.”—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
In this collection of essays, renowned social-justice advocate Tim Wise confronts racism in contemporary America. Seen through the lens of major flashpoints during the Obama and Trump years, Dispatches from the Race War faces the consequences of white supremacy in all its forms. This includes a discussion of the bigoted undertones of the Tea Party’s backlash, the killing of Trayvon Martin, current day anti-immigrant hysteria, the rise of openly avowed white nationalism, the violent policing of African Americans, and more. Wise devotes a substantial portion of the book to explore the racial ramifications of COVID-19, and the widespread protests which followed the police murder of George Floyd.
Concise, accessible chapters, most written in first-person, offer an excellent source for those engaged in the anti-racism struggle. Tim Wise’s proactive approach asks white allies to contend with—and take responsibility for—their own role in perpetuating racism against Blacks and people of color. Dispatches from the Race War reminds us that the story of our country is the history of racial conflict, and that our future may depend on how—or if—we can resolve it. “To accept racism is quintessentially American,” writes Wise, “to rebel against it is human. Be human.”
“Tim Wise’s new book gives us the tools we need to reach people whose understanding of our country is white instead of right. And without pissing them off!”—James W. Loewen, author, Lies My Teacher Told Me
“Tim Wise’s latest is more urgent than ever. Unflinchingly, and page after page, Wise calls out a brutal truth, one unwelcome to so many white people: The racial trauma playing out across this nation, hour after hour, day after day, is inflicted—be it actively or unwittingly—by them. But as Wise also, so rightly, notes, this isn’t the whole story. Despite what some would hope for this nation, we are not doomed to a white-sparked race war. Just as this nation’s history is steeped in racial oppression, so too is it rich with anti-racist resistance. It is to this anti-racist resistance that white people in particular, but the country as a whole, must now commit. . . . no matter what.”—Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy

VIRTUAL EVENT: LIVING WRITERS SERIES, Lauren Groff
2021-02-04 17:20 - 18:55
The UCSC Literature Department and Creative Writing Program Present: LIVING WRITERS SERIES WINTER 2021 “Shelter and Place,” a theme about world building when the world seems to be falling apart, about writing about place, about seeking and finding and not finding shelter in stormy times, and of course, what it means to be a writer and a person writing while sheltering in place.
FEBRUARY 4TH FEATURED WRITER: LAUREN GROFF
Lauren Groff is the author of five books, most recently Fates and Furies, a novel, and Florida, a short story collection. She has twice been shortlisted for the National Book Award, has won the Story Prize and France’s Grand Prix de L’héroïne, and was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her next novel, Matrix, is slated for publication by Riverhead in September 2021.
Register for this FREE event series here.
The Living Writers Series runs on select Thursdays from 5:20-6:55p.m. Authors’ books available for pick up or delivery via Bookshop Santa Cruz. Find them here.

Dr. Larry Ward - America's Racial Karma: An Invitation to Heal (Virtual Event)
2021-02-04 18:00 - 20:00
“I am a drop in the ocean, but I’m also the ocean. I’m a drop in America, but I’m also America. Every pain, every confusion, every good and every bad and ugly of America is in me. And as I transform myself and heal and take care of myself, I’m very conscious that I’m healing and transforming and taking care of America. I say this for American cynics, but this is also true globally. It’s for real.” So says Zen Buddhist teacher Dr. Larry Ward.
Shot at by the police as an 11-year-old child for playing baseball in the wrong spot, as an adult, Larry Ward experienced the trauma of having his home firebombed by racists. At Plum Village Monastery in France, the home in exile of his teacher, Vietnamese peace activist and Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, Dr. Ward found a way to heal. In these short reflective essays, he offers his insights on the effects of racial constructs and answers the question: how do we free ourselves from our repeated cycles of anger, denial, bitterness, pain, fear, violence? Larry Ward looks at the causes and conditions that have led us to our current state and finds, hidden in the crisis, a profound opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a human being. This is an invitation to transform America’s racial karma.
The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the catalyst that sparked the young Larry Ward’s journey into a life of planetary peacemaking. Dr. Ward’s introduction to Buddhist practice began in Calcutta in 1977, but it was when he met Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1991 that the practice became truly central to his life. He is ordained as a Dharma teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition and has accompanied Thich Nhat Hanh on peace-building missions internationally, as well as throughout the United States. Dr. Ward brings 25 years of experience in organizational change and local community renewal in 20 countries to his work as director of the Lotus Institute and as an advisor to the Executive Mind Leadership Institute at the Drucker School of Management, in Claremont, California. Dr. Ward holds a PhD in Religious Studies with an emphasis on Buddhism and research on the neuroscience of meditation.

Dantiel W. Moniz in conversation with C Pam Zhang
2021-02-04 18:00 - 20:00
celebrating Dantial W. Moniz new novel
Milk Blood Heat
published by Grove Atlantic Press
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This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.
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Event is free, but registration is required.
(Click Here) to register. Link coming soon.
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(Click Here) to purchase book. Link coming soon.
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A livewire debut from Dantiel W. Moniz, one of the most exciting discoveries in today’s literary landscape, Milk Blood Heat depicts the sultry lives of Floridians in intergenerational tales that contemplate human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance, and the elemental darkness in us all. Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another.
A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter—whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.
Wise and subversive, spiritual and seductive, Milk Blood Heat forms an ouroboros of stories that bewitch with their truth, announcing the arrival of a bright new literary star.
Dantiel W. Moniz is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction, the Cecelia Joyce Johnson Emerging Writer Award by the Key West Literary Seminars, and a Tin House Scholarship. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in the Paris Review, Tin House, Ploughshares, the Yale Review, Joyland, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, and elsewhere. Milk Blood Heat is her first book. She lives in Northeast Florida.
C Pam Zhang is the author of the novel How Much of These Hills is Gold published by Riverhead Books in 2020, and was long-listed for the 2020 Booker Prize.

The Chicken Sisters: Author KJ Dell'Antonia in Conversation With Nancy Davis Kho
2021-02-04 18:00 - 20:00
Please join us on Thursday, February 4, 2021 at 6 PM PST for an online discussion of one of Kathleen’s recent favorites, THE CHICKEN SISTERS, with author KJ Dell’Antonia in conversation with Nancy Davis Kho, author of THE THANK YOU PROJECT.
Our discussion will be webcast on Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82283219224.
(Order your copy of THE CHICKEN SISTERS at http://bit.ly/ggpChickenSisters or in audiobook at http://bit.ly/ChickenSistersAB.)
December 2020 Indie Next List

“I am charmed by The Chicken Sisters! Family fights, fried chicken, a dog and her puppies, mental illness, a shaky marriage, a potential romance, and a reality show taping all combine for a great small-town story. Generations of feuding sisters with competing chicken shack restaurants hash it out for the cameras, their loved ones, and themselves. The Chicken Sisters is a delightful read.”
— Susan Williams, M. Judson Booksellers & Storytellers, Greenville, SC
Description

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK
“A charming, hilarious, feel-good story about the kind of bonds & rivalries only sisters can share. Also, a great present for your sister for the holidays!!”–Reese Witherspoon
Three generations. Two chicken shacks. One recipe for disaster.
In tiny Merinac, Kansas, Chicken Mimi’s and Chicken Frannie’s have spent a century vying to serve up the best fried chicken in the state–and the legendary feud between their respective owners, the Moores and the Pogociellos, has lasted just as long. No one feels the impact more than thirty-five-year-old widow Amanda Moore, who grew up working for her mom at Mimi’s before scandalously marrying Frank Pogociello and changing sides to work at Frannie’s. Tired of being caught in the middle, Amanda sends an SOS to Food Wars, the reality TV restaurant competition that promises $100,000 to the winner. But in doing so, she launches both families out of the frying pan and directly into the fire. . .
The last thing Brooklyn-based organizational guru Mae Moore, Amanda’s sister, wants is to go home to Kansas. But when her career implodes, helping the fading Mimi’s look good on Food Wars becomes Mae’s best chance to reclaim the limelight–even if doing so pits her against Amanda and Frannie’s. Yet when family secrets become public knowledge, the sisters must choose: Will they fight with each other, or for their heritage?
About the Author

KJ Dell’Antonia is the former editor of Motherlode and current contributor to The New York Times, as well as the author of How to Be a Happier Parent. She lives with her family on a small farm in Lyme, New Hampshire, but retains an abiding love for her childhood in Texas and Kansas.

Catana Chetwynd / In Love & Pajamas: A Collection of Comics about Being Yourself Together
2021-02-04 18:00 - 20:00
Booksmith is thrilled to host a virtual event with #1 New York Times bestselling creator of Catana Comics, Catana Chetwynd (Snug and Little Moments of Love) for her third book In Love & Pajamas: A Collection of Comics about Being Yourself Together. Come meet Catana and her boyfriend John and get a signed copy of the book, plus a chance to win limited edition prints, live drawings from the event, and other special, custom-designed gifts!
Please note:

This is a ticketed event, with each ticket including a copy of the book – no exceptions.
We’re happy to say we have *signed copies* while supplies last. More information about this will be announced soon.
Each ticket holder will be entered into a raffle to win a limited edition print, live drawings, and other custom-designed gifts.
If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to contact us: events@booksmith.com.

When you’ve reached that sweatpants-wearing cozy place in your relationship, it’s all In Love & Pajamas! This brand-new collection of Catana Comics presents 50 percent never-before-seen comics and some fan favorites that delight and amuse readers of all ages. Wholesome, sweet, feel-good humor, a perfect gift for your other half and a welcome add-on to any wedding, anniversary, or Valentine’s Day gift.
Catana Chetwynd is a self-taught traditional artist and the enthusiastic author of Catana Comics. She grew up in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she spent her time creating art and pursuing an education in psychology until accidentally stumbling into the world of comics. Not only is her fiancé, John, the daily inspiration for her drawings, but he was also the one who suggested a comic series about their relationship in the first place. Thanks to his idea and his inspiring daily antics, Catana was able to pursue her childhood dream of being a cartoonist. She currently lives on the East Coast with John and their tiny, angry dog, Murph.
Please note: This is a ticketed, all-ages event. Each ticket includes a signed copy of In Love & Pajamas (while supplies last) – no exceptions. If you already have a copy, remember that books make great gifts! If you’ve already gifted this title to all of your friends, please write events@booksmith.com and we’ll work things out.

Policies

Refund Policy:
No refunds or returns. Contact events@booksmith.com with any questions.
Cancellation Policy:
If we have to cancel an event, you will be refunded within 4 business days of the event date.
